Congratulations to Blogcritics.org upon reaching the 10 million unique visitors mark, just before their third anniversary (August 12, 2005).

For those not familiar with Blogcritics.org, whose tagline is, “A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, technology, and politics,” it is a large group blog (1058 authors) that is also a news service that is also a community.

I originally stumbled across Blogcritics.org in November of 2004 while I was looking for ways to let people on the Internet know that I am here. The search string “blog increase visibility” brought me to a Blogcritics.org post entitled, Are You a Blogcritic? which was written by Blogcritics.org publisher, Eric Olsen.

I did not really think of myself as a Blogcritic when I emailed Mr. Olsen with my name, blog URL and primary areas of interest, but I soon learned that that is exactly what I am and I have been posting articles and comments there on a semi-regular basis ever since.

I am not certain of how much actual — in the marketing sense — public exposure Blogcritics has provided for my little corner of the blogosphere (of course there is always that linkie thingie), but I did get what I was really after, which was not really publicity, but people with whom to share interesting discussions.

And the people are the reason why I keep returning to Blogcritics.org. They are a mostly smart, always interesting (and never without opinions and observations) mix of authoritarians, libertarians, Bible thumpers, proselytizing atheists, elitists, dilettantes, conspiracy theorists, doomsayers, pundits, pedants, polemicists, partisans, real intellectuals, pseudo-intellectuals and wannabe intellectuals, like yours truly.

I may not always agree with what these wonderfully diverse folks have to say, but one does not find enlightenment in a vacuum and mutual admiration societies bore me to tears. Anyone who feels the same way ought to consider joining Blogcritics.org.